Hurricane Drunk
by WellingtonBoot
Summary: A sticky rimmed glass of vodka, rum, gin, whiskey and beer. A cold and vacant bed on the floor above. The tick, tick, ticking of a clock above the bar. Downstairs Tifa Lockhart lay waiting for her knight in shining armor. She was drowning in her sorrow.
1. Hurricane Drunk

**Hurricane Drunk**

_One more gulp._

She gulped.

It felt like the slivering of lead-heavy, sickly snakes cascading down the sides of her mouth, pooling under her tongue, wheeling in meandering motions down her throat until the thick liquid reached her empty stomach and hit like a tombstone off a cliff into a vast salty ocean. But the ocean was shallow. The concentration of alcohol was increasing. Her taste buds were on the verge of throwing up for her. She was finally drunk.

She kept going.

If she could reach the stupor state she had seen some of her customers in before, that almost vegetated looking state, maybe she'd forget even more. Maybe she'd feel even less. Despite their absolute helplessness these incredibly drunk customers who, with the help of her regulars, she often had to drag out into the street before they threw up all over the bar, always seemed kind of happy. They certainly didn't seem aware of anything around them, the world around them, the trouble they were causing, the responsibility they were chucking aside, the distress they were causing her, or any distress or pain they may have themselves... and that was the appeal.

Her head collapsed into her arms. Her neck lay across her elbow and bent onto the hard surface of the bar, her left eyebrow smothering the woodwork. It smelt like disinfectant, wood polish and beer. She tilted her head slightly and her eyes lazed over to the little clock she had hung behind the bar. It wasn't too late. Maybe she'd move. Maybe she'd slide into her comfy little bed and find comfort in the fluffiness of her new winter blanket. But, then again, maybe she'd just feel that overwhelming loneliness again.

She just wanted- no, she dreamed of a knight in shinning armor swooping into the bar, scooping her up in his arms, carrying her to bed, silent and serious yet concerned, tucking her into her fluffy winter blanket, holding her to him as her mind lulled into peace against his broad and safe chest. It was comfort she wanted. It was peace she wanted. Only then would the inability to sleep go away.

Well, she had a knight. But she didn't have a knight. She had something but it wasn't _the_ knight. Or it was but it was the wrong one, or a halfway house, or a hybrid with something else which didn't allow it to quite tick the boxes. Either way it wasn't what it was.

She didn't know. But she no longer cared! She couldn't even think! Finally she understood the appeal of "getting off your face"!

She collapsed onto the bar and fell asleep.

***

"Tifa."

The world was a blurry mess of black and brown and disinfectant and wood polish and beer.

"Tifa."

The world was shaking. The bar was experiencing an earthquake. She better phone the radio- no, turn it on and listen to the number of casualties and sigh and suddenly feel selfish for wallowing in her own self-pity.

"Tifa!"

The earthquake was getting more violent. She really better get up. She moved. A torrent of poison shot through her veins under the pressure caused by the slight movement. In fact, that would be quite a thing, if, say, she had not been drinking "safe" alcohol in her Corel wine, but instead the incomplete fermentation product, methanol, which was a poison. Methanol actually killed people. She thought this over for a moment, and then found solace in the knowledge that at least Cloud and the children would get plenty of compensation from the Corel Wine Company over her death. It was better than nothing.

"Tifa! Wake up!"

A large shove and she thought she was being pushed across the bar. She found the strength to tilt her head upwards and looked ahead. A sharp light was glinting off the bottlenecks of spirits on the shelf opposite her, right into her right eye. She was dazzled by it. Someone had turned on the lights.

She made an effort to look back at the little clock face hovering above the bar. It was three in the morning, three hours later than when she'd last looked. She must have passed out without realising it.

A strong hand placed itself around her shoulder blade and she began to sober up at the touch. It was warm, but it was cool in comparison to the scolding hot emanating from her skin. She began to sit up but only got half way before she felt an intense pranging sensation across and around the top of her head, as if someone had fitted a hat tight around her temple and then attempted to rip it off. She sulked onto her balled-up hands and propped her head up. A pair of dazzling blue eyes shone back at her; deep and mysterious like the oceans, tired and a little panicked, resembling a perturbed human being. Her rufous eyes had glazed over and were unable to focus on them properly.

The dazzling blue eyes let out a small sigh through their nose. The nose's lips then twitched slightly into a slight twist and then back again. All the way back up shot her eyes to the blonde and elegant, for a guy, eyebrows framing the whole picture.

"You're drunk," the lips finally decided.

She shied away slowly into the nook of her elbow, but then a hand came out of nowhere and stroked the side of her face. She straightened her head suddenly and experienced a head-rush. Her eyes winced and she tried to remove herself from his grip.

"I'm fine," a strange voice replied.

This time just the eyes sighed. Only she had ever seemed able to read them so quickly like that. Most eyes didn't speak so loudly as they did. You just had to be able to understand their language which took prolonged familiarity to learn.

"You've been crying."

The voice was more broken this time. She looked down at the strong hand and saw the glints of little tears on his fingertips. Maybe in between the passing out, the increased distorting of her inner monologue and the acute stench of sharp chemicals rising into her senses she had at one point cried. She couldn't really remember.

"I'm fine." The strange voice was now adamant and clearly frustrated. It was also husky and sore.

She was suddenly levered like a huge bag of rice onto somebody's side, ready to be launched into the back of some trailer and driven off for sale. She struggled in protest but the arms were too strong, the shoulders were too strong and she found herself being removed from her comfortable slump on the stool.

Her feet hit the floor and she tried to stand upright. To her amazement and premature elatedness she managed it. The blurriness of the world began to sharpen out, the throbbing in her head came and went but was less consistent, the nauseating smells were gone from right under her senses. She looked up. Cloud was looking at her uncertainly with a precautionary hand on either side of her. He made her feel like a child.

"What do you want, Cloud?"

He was dumbfounded. His shoulders lost a little of their composure.

"What are you doing?" she asked hastily and pushed against his arms. With resistance he kept them there.

"I don't need you to look after me!"

His arms enclosed and suddenly brought her close. The thud of her body against his resonated through her bones. She could hear the pulsating of his heartbeat over the throbbing of her headache. Her arms had raised defensively with the second nature of a martial arts master in the moment he had clung her to him, and so they weren't quite together; it was a struggling hold. But then his warmth, his strength, his masculine smell, his aura of security and want to protect, his persistence and gentleness, his concern; it was all too much. He wasn't the right one, he wasn't the knight, he wasn't the one she had been hoping for, he didn't love her over another.

She pushed fiercely against him. When he resisted again and tried to pull her closer into his bittersweet comfort she gritted her teeth. She resisted the urge to scream. "Don't touch me."

Silence fell across the room. The empty glass on the bar counter stood by mournfully with its sticky rim of vodka, rum, gin, wine, whiskey, beer...

His hands fell to his sides.

She found the steadiness to walk a few steps away from him. He stayed where he was. Control regained itself helpfully quickly as she reached the stairs, her mobility feeling more as if she was sober. Eyes fixed on her goal she could move easily up and over one step and another until she reached the landing, then her bedroom, then her bed, then her pillow, then her blankets, and then, finally, something resembling sleep.

Cloud remained in the bar. Something ate inside of him. His heart shuddered down his bones into his feet; his eyes were aware of every piece of décor in the room, every piece of evidence of what had just happened. He shut his eyes.

As the image of Tifa walking up the stairs and away from him repeated over, and over, and over, and the sound of her angry and disgusted voice repeated, "Don't touch me," "Don't touch me," over, and over, and over, he felt the squelching of his heart in between his toes, blood threatening to trickle and explode from every fibre of his soul.

With a sudden rupture, his heart finally broke.


	2. Care to Forget

**Care to Forget**

There was nobody in the house. It was a quiet day. The droplets of water bounced and shimmered off the glasses as Tifa washed them one after the other, then dried them, and then slotted them onto their shelf above the bar. The oven's alarm would then go off to tell her that the casserole was ready, the rice was ready, the meat was ready, the pastry was ready and so on.

Like a mechanical robot she did one thing after the other, never ceasing, relying on the external stimuli of a bleep or a tick or a tock of the clock to tell her what to do. When she took the time to actually look at the clock face above and behind the bar it was quarter past two in the afternoon. She suddenly found she had nothing else to do. She stood in the middle of the floor limp and motionless.

The front door opened.

Blond spikes, heavy leather boots and an outfit of dark cloth, Cloud looked up briefly as he entered. But as soon as he had caught site of her presence his eyes shifted away again. As he moved upstairs without a word she remained motionless in the middle of the floor, her eyes remaining fixed on the toes of her shoes.

It had been the same scenario for the past few days. It was finally getting to her.

***

"Say, Cloud? About the other night..." The words died away again on Tifa's tongue. Muttering practice apologies to herself were failing more miserably than she had hoped.

She wanted to say sorry for getting drunk; sorry for anything she may have said to upset him; sorry for anything she may have _done_ to upset him. But, most of all, sorry for being irresponsible and so beyond her own character; however, she was hopeless at finding the words. So she decided to wait for her opportunity, however long it took. She would say whatever came first, in a huge flood if she had to, just to get it out in the open.

From within her room she suddenly caught sound of Cloud's heavy boots leaving his own room further down the hall. She heard him begin to walk past her door. She seized her opportunity.

"Cloud." She threw open the door and caught hold of his arm. He registered her grip and stopped still in the center of the hall. His head turned very slightly so that she could see the side of his face, but his eyes did not look up. She was struck for a moment by the shocking blue of his eyes, for she hadn't got to look into them for what now felt like weeks. "Can I talk to you?"

The question hung heavily in the air. When he finally spoke his voice sounded tired and strained.

"What is it?"

She didn't want to have this conversation in the hallway, but she didn't feel she had much of a choice judging by his cold and unmoving stance.

"About the other night..." She watched as the muscles in his face tightened slightly. "I just want to say that I'm sorry for anything I said or did. I wasn't myself."

His stance relaxed and he rotated himself slightly so that she could now see his whole face. There was still something haunted about the way he was looking at her.

"Do you remember what happened?"

She couldn't say anything because she couldn't remember, not a thing. She had woken up with the tell-tale signs of a very bad hangover. Then she had spotted the little glass sitting beside the assorted bottles of alcoholic beverages on the sink when she had come down into the bar in the morning. She had then realised the connection, and that someone must have tidied the evidence to the side. Although she had known, somehow, that it hadn't been her.

As she looked into his eyes even more the look she gave him was questioning, quiet and almost afraid. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what she could have done to make Cloud avoid her like this.

"No, I don't," she said quietly.

Cloud diverted his gaze momentarily. "Then don't worry about it."

It hurt. As he began to turn away again her fingers latched even tighter on his arm.

"No, tell me what I did." Her voice was losing some of it's strength, attempting to stay calm.

The corners of his mouth twitched. He didn't answer.

"I've been worried sick because you haven't spoken to me in days! Just tell me what I could have possibly done!"

Her outburst made him turn around quickly to face her, forcing her grip to slip from his arm. He stared deep into her eyes.

"You cried," he said, taking a sudden step forward, "and then I made you worse."

It made no sense to her.

"But... then why am I apologising?"

He looked away and straightened himself. In a faint voice he replied, "You shouldn't be."

She let go of him then, and watched him walk down the stairs. She waited until she heard the garage door shut and the growling of his bike as he drove away, probably to another day-long series of deliveries that would carry on long into the night, always his excuse to distance himself from her.

She sighed into her hands and threaded her fingers through her hair and tried to run back through their conversation – although it had felt more like a stifled confrontation - in her head: she had got drunk and cried. He had then made her worse. And all this was somehow why he had been avoiding her. Did he feel bad? Or was it something else she wasn't seeing? But still, she couldn't understand what he, her ideal love and childhood friend, could have ever done to make her worse. Or why he, gentle and thoughtful Cloud, would have ever chosen to make her worse. Or why even she, frustrated although still happy living with him and the children as they were, would have even been crying in the first place.

***

He hadn't returned. _Three days_ later and he still hadn't returned. He was rarely gone for more than a day at a time simply for the children's sake. Marlene and Denzel didn't say anything though. She thought, with some ease to her worry about them, that maybe they weren't as suspicious as she was that he'd run away again. Either that or maybe they were protecting her as much as she was protecting them by not revealing their own anxieties. And then, just maybe, there was something else that he hadn't told her about that night that had really been what had driven him away. She simply didn't know. She wasn't even sure if she wanted to think about it.

She went back into her mechanical way of keeping busy, keeping distracted; do this, do that, beep, take that out, "Hey bartender!", pour that drink, "Steak please," cook that, tick, get the children to bed, tock, do some last minute washing, dong, and it was suddenly midnight.

She suddenly found she had nothing else to do. She remained motionless in the middle of the floor.

The front door did not open.


	3. Unrequited Love

**Unrequited Love  
**

Cloud moved into the bar shakily. He felt weak but he didn't know why. He felt sick but he didn't know why. He was trudging one leg in front of the other with every passing hour, minute and second; but he didn't know why.

It was three in the morning. He looked across at the dark wood of the bar, the layering shadows drawn behind it, the bottles of alcohol silent in the background, and then remembered how that one evening he couldn't get out of his head had played out: he had spotted her asleep on the bar, her shoulders moving up and down gently as she breathed delicately in her sleep. The way she was slumped made him smile because he felt it was so typical of her to work herself to the brink of exhaustion. He had reached out with his hand and called her name, but there had been no answer. He had persisted but she hadn't woken. He had become worried and started to move her gently awake with the grip of his hand. When he had finally woken her, her movements had been slow, her voice strained and sore, her eyes glazed over and devoid of that kind warmth he cherished every time he looked into their melting brown and red glimmer. Then there had been a lingering smell of alcohol. He had spotted the open bottles scattered haphazardly across the counter and the glass positioned to the side of her elbow and then joined the dots.

Something had burned inside him then. He had felt guilty, responsible and angry with himself for letting her get in that state. She had poured the drinks and swallowed them down, but his absence and neglect had been the cause of her desire to do it. He knew it. Or at least at the time that had been what he had thought. Maybe he had been too conceited. Perhaps he was a complete fool.

When he had clutched her to him in her vulnerable state he had had no control over himself, but at the same time it had felt like his only way of gaining some control, of taking some kind of responsibility for his actions or, more accurately, lack thereof. It had been his only way of saying "sorry", of saying "it's my fault", of saying "I owe you more than this". But more important than the rest, "I love you."

She had broken his heart.

"Don't touch me," her words to him, echoed around his ears again, causing his eardrums to burn and his jaw to lock fiercely tight. His heart was too ragged to react anymore except for the mere pulse that thundered about its walls, threatening to tear it down again.

He had tried to find solace in the church in Midgar's ruins once again when he had been away but had found nothing. He had watched the sunlight glint off the Buster Sword Zack had given him and the unnatural water pooling around and beneath it which had reminded him of Aerith. Being there had told him what he already knew, that that chapter of his life was over and he didn't want to be away from any of them any more, Tifa or the children. But it hadn't stopped him doubting himself. Sometimes he wondered if that was all he really had left, doubt. Tifa had now slipped through his fingers and her feelings for him were secretly hateful and disgusted.

He deserved it.

***

Three thirty and Tifa was still awake. Her head was creased in between the ruffles of her pillows and the cold and clammy sheets spread across her mattress. Her inability to sleep, her inability to feel any kind of peace when she wasn't working, they were her plague. She was too scared of distancing herself any more from Cloud to try to resort to drinking again. She wouldn't dare risk it.

As her thoughts snagged and caught on more thoughts of him and how much she wished he was home another salty tear rolled gently down her cheek. Her thoughts turned over once again in the shuddering cold of the room:

He had loved another all along. That was why he couldn't love her. When he had run away before she had thought to check in the church in the ruins of Midgar painfully under that suspicion. When she had found her suspicion proved right it had all made so much sense to her. It had hurt. Nevertheless it hadn't changed that she was going to stick by him, look out for him, be there for him if he should ever need her. She couldn't help that it still filled her with despair, some air of regret and resentment towards him in the darkness of the cold nights when her mind wondered to thoughts of him and how much she loved him. It was wasted emotions because it was never going to happen, and she knew that. He loved another. He always had. It was just the way things were.

Cloud loved Aerith.

***

Three forty-five and Cloud reached the landing. He moved into his room silently, undressed, chucked up the bed covers and then slid underneath them. He lay there, and he lay there for a long time. In the room next door Tifa was undoubtedly asleep, calm, although maybe a little worried in the depths of her consciousness because he knew he did that to her when he went away for more than a day or two, and certainly after how he had left the other day. Or at least he knew that she cared about what the children thought anyway.

He'd surprise them all in the morning when he'd come down to breakfast. He'd make an effort to make them believe he never intended to be away long, and that if they had worried they shouldn't have done. He loved them all too much, even Tifa though she couldn't love him back, not to at least try.

***

"Cloud!" The children looked up in unison when they said his name in surprise. There was something torn about their expressions, but then it suddenly melted away and they jumped down from their chairs. They both hugged him tightly around his waist; although Denzel regained his boyish nature quickly and settled for a ruffling of his hair. Marlene looked up at him from under his arm and asked how his trip had been. He was such a fool for even thinking he could leave them again.

"Where's Tifa?" he asked them gently.

They exchanged glances. Neither were sure. Marlene ambled upstairs to check she wasn't still in her bedroom. As Cloud waited a little anxiously Denzel, who had remained with him, turned to him with a now less animated expression on his face.

"Cloud, she-"

She walked in suddenly from outside and Cloud's heart stopped. She had frozen still as she'd spotted him crouching only a few meters in front of her. Denzel looked between them and then made a quick judgement. He gave a meek smile, no longer feeling the need to finish his sentence, and ran upstairs to join Marlene.

"I thought you-"

"I didn't want to stay away."

His words were quiet but hung heavily in the air. Her shoulders and eyes winced at it. She couldn't let her heart make too much of his words. He on the other hand took her reaction of a matter of course; she was probably wincing at the thought of having him around again.

He stood up slowly and she regarded him cautiously. She was still hurting, but at least he had come back. Perhaps she shouldn't have feared the worst after all, maybe he had intended to come back the whole time.

"Well, there's pancakes in the kitchen if you're hungry. You couldn't have eaten much last night," she offered warmly.

"No," he said in reply. "I'll go eat."

He walked past her into the kitchen. The unique essence of Cloud that invaded and floated into her personal space as he walked past made her body temporarily liven, her veins grow a little more warm, her skin feel less taut, and her heart struggle against the tight binds she had desperately latched on it. She just wanted to reach out and hug him tightly until everything else went away, until her loneliness and heartache dissolved into nothing.

***

The stars of that evening were brilliantly bright. Small fluffy clouds could be seen floating just over Seventh Heaven with a grayish-blue tint effect on the sky. Tifa came outside to tidy up, keys jangling in her hand. The issues on her mind were heavy, but when she looked up briefly she was taken by the image, stopped what she was doing and stood on the porch and gazed upwards. It was a distraction but also a reminder. Lost even more in thought, her arms dropped to her sides.

Upstairs Cloud was already looking, although not seeing, out of the window from his bed when his eyes were captured by the same dazzling starry-night sky as Tifa. He snapped out of his trance of thought and stood up from his chair to gaze farther. His face gained the same distant-eyed expression Tifa had as he too gazed into the mesmerising play of little white lights glinting in a sea of infinite, silky, black sky.

So much history; so much had passed.

Back when they were thirteen and fourteen years-old, while he was promising to protect her like the hero he aspired to be to capture her heart, he had secretly loved her, and at the same time she had begun to secretly love him in return. Now the love was more mature, the boy and girl were now a man and a woman, and yet the love was still secret, locked deep inside each others hearts, desperate to have itself accepted by the object of their affections, and yet both were doubting of the feelings of the other. Unrequited love.

"Some things never change," they thought in unison.

"But then some things should," Cloud thought to himself.


	4. Care to Feel

**Care to Feel**

Winter sunshine shone through the windows, reflecting off of the golden and silver frames of pictures on walls and on bed-side tables. Seventh Heaven's interior had gained a frozen blue flame feel to it. It was cold, but not cold enough to shiver or feel the want to complain. The children were at school and Cloud and Tifa had been left alone in the house.

Cloud was watching her as he planned his routes on a nearby table. She was bustling about doing odd jobs he couldn't keep track of. Up the stairs, down the stairs, up, down, up, down, pause, do something else, walk from kitchen to storeroom, then vice versa, and then back up and down the stairs again.

He stood up, abandoning his maps. He was becoming dizzy with all her running about and he wanted to talk to her. He moved to the staircase. He followed her as she ascended the steps again and wondered if she could tell he was behind her, tailing her, but of course she could, her senses as a fighter wouldn't let it be possible otherwise. Reaching forward as she reached the landing he caught her arm. It was a gentle movement and she responded slowly in return, turning on her feet to face him.

"Tifa, can I talk to you?"

Her look became expectant and at the same time unsure. He continued to meet her gaze.

"Tifa, I..." The words caught in his throat and he had to look away. His stance had lost a little composure and he was now leaning towards the nearest wall. He felt an enclosing anxiety, an unsteadiness slowly consuming his motivation to speak. But then he knew he had to say it. He fisted his fingers into the palms of his hands and looked back up to greet her expression with dynamic and weary blue eyes. "I- I don't care. I don't care if you don't want me around. I don't care if you've had enough of me. I'm going to stay right here, Seventh Heaven, our home, no matter what you now think of me." His eyes were no longer shifting and unsure, they were piercing straight through her. "Here is where I belong Tifa, the place I feel happy with you and the children. I'm going to stay here even if... Even if you hate me."

Her eyes grew wide and wildly bewildered, vulnerable in stark confusion. Her voice became barely a whisper.

"Cloud..." She began to shake her head slowly, her eyes averting in disbelief at what he had said. "Cloud, I could _never_ hate you. What could ever make you think that?"

Her desperation for an answer hindered him. He struggled to pluck up the confidence to explain.

"That night... the night you cried and I tried to comfort you..." He sighed as the memory came over him once again. "You made it very clear you didn't want to be around me."

"Then what did I say?" she asked him hastily, but then she was already shaking her head again. Whatever she had said must have been false.

"It wasn't so much what you said-"

"You don't get it! It doesn't matter what I said, Cloud, because you're wrong. Nothing you could ever do could make me hate you. I could never in my whole life hate you. In fact I-" Her words stopped abruptly as her heart raced. The color rose in her cheeks, the nape of her neck, her chest; her whole body and her heart begged her to say it, to confess, to confess how she felt about him. But she bit her tongue. The words, "he loves Aerith" flitted wildly about in her head like a broken film reel. The skipping in her heart stopped.

"You... what?" he asked softly, waiting quietly on her answer.

She looked away and then forced herself to look back again to ease some of the the tension growing in his anxious eyes. She smiled at him.

"It's nothing." She paused and then continued, "I care about you very much, Cloud. You're family and please don't think I could ever hate you."

He had held his breath. Her look was earnest and he had to reply.

"Okay."

Life was too precious. She was too precious. He was a friend, a member of her family and maybe it was too much to hope for, even now, that he could ever be anything more; but he was going to stay around to find out. At the very least, he now knew that she didn't hate him. It was hope. It was a relief.


	5. Tidal Sleep

**Tidal Sleep**

He slept.

The tension in his strong frame eased into a soft resting, his fingers fell limp and his heavy eyelids closed like silk curtains over stony-blue walls. His brow smoothed out, and the cushions underneath his head sunk under the weight.

He had driven into Edge while it poured down with rain. The fierce wind and even fiercer force of the rain had slowed him down. Fenrir currently stood in the garage muddy and shining with a watery sheen. He had come in while being careful to take off his muddy boots, chucked his clothes aside in the garage and swapped them for clean, un-ironed nightclothes of his that he'd seen in the dryer, and then collapsed onto the couch in the living room. There was a heater just the other side of the armrest and it warmed the spikes on his head, his nose and the back of his neck, but it had been the scent of Tifa lingering on the cushions from the many times she had accidentally fallen asleep on the same couch that had eventually lulled him to sleep.

At four-thirty he was woken up.

"Cloud?"

A quiet voice wavered about in his subconscious.

"Cloud...?"

This time it felt like it was calling him. A part of him was reluctant to register that it was there when he felt so peaceful and at ease. There was an insistent nagging to recognise the voice fully though, since he sensed it came from a person who made him feel better.

"Cloud, wake up..."

He opened his eyelids to find the world as a blurry concoction of dark browns, reds, the soft fabric of cushions and the calming essence of a woman, the woman he was in love with. As he opened his eyes even wider the blurriness died away and in its place was Tifa's beautiful smile and Tifa's beautiful eyes. Her delicate eyebrows raised as she saw he was awake.

"I was worried when I didn't hear you come upstairs. I thought something might be the matter."

A kind and caring statement. His eyes took in her pretty facial features a little more, and then he willed the strength to push up on his left arm, left hot from resting underneath his body, and bring his eyes level to hers. He still felt heavy and tired. The warmth of the heater was still warming the air he was breathing, making him feel no better.

"You're tired. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have woken you." She stood up to leave.

He snatched out at her nightgown's sleeve, making it tug as she turned away.

"I don't mind," a faltering voice replied.

He dragged himself up off the couch, keeping a slight hold on her sleeve in his sleepy stupor. He was facing her, their bodies now at forty-five degree angles to each other, herself still partially turned towards the door, and yet his gaze was fixing her to the spot. He watched as she blushed and pursed her lips a little.

"Are you going upstairs to sleep in your room?"

He ignored the question. He stepped forward to close the gap between them and she blushed again. He brought his arms round her sides and then suddenly enclosed them. It felt like before except this time there was no resistance, no raising of her arms in guarded defence, and her body came to rest against his gently. She was startled for a second, but then she adjusted to this new closeness and threaded her arms around his back and returned his hug.

He savoured it, the closeness he had dared to try to attain before but had been rejected harshly from. She was perfectly calm, and he was more than calm, he was at complete peace as if in a dream.

"Is everything okay?" she asked hesitantly in his ear.

He merely nodded his head against her shoulder. For him everything was suddenly almost perfect. His arms were solid and accommodating behind her back. The hug was the join between two complementing pieces of a puzzle, that's how right the hug felt to him, and he felt whole.

After some time he realised he was going to have to let go. He eased his hold and hers eased in turn. He felt the drag of the fabric of her night top past his fingertips, and the warmth of her bare neck and jaw withdrawing from his shoulder and past his own. But he didn't leave it at that, he couldn't, and he turned his head at the last moment, his lips brushing past hers. He kissed her.

She quickly drew back from him. "Cloud, what are you... ?" But he had leaned forward and kissed her again, his arms returning to their strong hold on her waist and down her back. For a brief moment she stopped resisting, her arms brought themselves around his neck and she kissed him back, their lips locking in a soft passion. A few more moments and the kiss broke. He stared into her eyes trying to work out what she was feeling.

"But..." She had turned away from him, her eyes wide and perplexed. He kept watching her intensely. "But you love Aerith."

He drew back and raised his eyebrows in suspended shock. "Aerith?"

Her eyes were lowered, and her grip behind his neck was faltering, her arms coming to rest hesitantly on his shoulders as if she felt like she was intruding on something, something off-limits, and she should remove her presence.

"Tifa, Aerith was my friend and I'll never forget her." Her eyes moved back to meet his but he could tell she was unbelieving in his words. "She had always loved Zack, and I've always loved you."

The air left her as he said it. She struggled to absorb his confession. She had to glaze over it. "Then why did you go to her church when you wanted somewhere to die? Why there if you didn't love her?" She still couldn't let herself believe it.

"It was away from you. It was away from everything I had failed. It was penance."

A single tear suddenly rolled down her cheek and she threw herself into the broadness of his chest, the rest of her tears smothering into the fabric of his shirt.

"Then why didn't you say anything before?" she gasped.

He wrapped his arms closer around her and sighed. One hand smoothing over her long, silky hair.

"I guess I never thought that you needed to hear it."

For a few moments they said nothing. He soothed her and tears still fell from the corners of her eyes.

"Then I guess you should know I love you too."

She pulled back and this time she kissed him, pushing herself up onto her toes to reach his lips and take them into her own. He let himself drown in it, in her, and leaned forward to submit, deepening the kiss, easing their lips apart. She lifted a hand from his shoulder blade and brought it around his neck, round to the collar of his shirt and pulled on it, their bodies suddenly becoming much closer. A sudden electricity pulsed through him and deep inside he felt something tauten.

The lights flicked on.

"What are you guys doing down here?"

Cloud and Tifa stepped apart to see the children half through the door with quizzical expressions on their faces. Tifa quickly recovered.

"I should ask you two the same thing. You shouldn't be up at this time of night," she said softly but warningly.

Marlene and Denzel looked uncomfortable at that, but before they could feel too guilty she said with a smile, "You're hungry, right?"

They nodded. Gesturing towards the kitchen they followed her, Cloud close behind, just glad they had pulled apart in time before they'd had to have explained their new intimacy to the kids on the spot. All together they snacked on whatever they could find. Cloud, who had been observing his family from a distance, now felt the need to try something different and moved from his normal corner of independence to lean on the counter right next to Tifa, brushing her arm with his, who turned with surprise at his presence and then smiled and blushed at the same time. It was not in an embarrassed way, but in a way that acknowledged the new closeness between them whether it was physical, like kissing, or simply being together, and she was happy with it.

Marlene had been eyeing them carefully until Denzel had dropped down his glass to show he was finished and distracted her. Moving back to their own room yawning, Cloud and Tifa wished the children a final and warm goodnight and made sure they got into bed. When the children's door closed and no one was left but him and herself, Cloud turned to Tifa, who gave him the same look he was giving her. He stepped forward and encircled her frame in his arms.

"We don't have to..."

But she cut him off, kissing him tenderly on the lips.

"I don't mind," she breathed against his ear.

Threading his fingers with hers he lead her down the hall calmly until they got to her bedroom door. By the time it shut, Cloud was finally getting the chance he'd desired since he could remember, the chance to show Tifa just how much he cared about her in a way that didn't need words.

From then on he knew they would always be together. Everything had finally been confessed.

Their love was no longer requited.


End file.
